1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a stencil printer system, and more particularly to a stencil printer system provided with a post handling system for distributing recorded sheets discharged from a printer to a plurality of bins.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been wide known a stencil printer system comprising a master making means which forms an imagewise pattern of perforations on a master blank, thereby making a stencil master, and a printing means in which the stencil master is wound around a printing drum having an ink-permeable outer peripheral wall and ink is transferred to printing papers through the stencil master, the master making means and the printing means being integrated into a unit.
Such a stencil printer system is often combined with various post handling systems such as a sheet sorter.
As disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 4(1992)-43089, there has been known a sheet sorter in which a plurality of recorded sheets discharged from an image recording apparatus such as a printer, a copier or the like are distributed to a plurality of bins in sequence to form a stack of sheets on each bin. Such a sheet sorter is provided with a first sheet transfer system which transfers the recorded sheets discharged from the image recording apparatus to the vicinity of the uppermost bin, a second sheet transfer system which receives the recorded sheets from the first sheet transfer system and is able to transfer the sheets to the vicinity of the lowermost bin and an indexer which receives the sheets from the second sheet transfer system and is movable up and down along the array of sheet inlet ends of the bins to distribute the sheets to the respective bins through the sheet inlet ends thereof. Further there has been known a sheet sorter which is further provided with a stapling means which staples the stack of sheets in each bin. The sheet sorter provided with a stapling means is generally arranged so that the user can switch the operating mode of the sheet sorter between a stapling mode for effecting stapling and a non-stapling mode for not effecting stapling.
Such a sheet sorter is sometimes provided with a plurality of operating modes. As typical operating modes, there have been known a "sorting mode" in which copies are stacked in each bin page by page and the copies stacked in each bin in order of the pages are bound together, a "group mode" in which copies of the same original are stacked in the same bin, and a "dry mode" in which the copies are distributed in sequence to the respective bins each to one bin until the number of copies reaches the number of the bins and when the number of copies exceeds the number of the bins, the copies are distributed in sequence from the first bin to the respective bins each to one bin to be stacked on the preceding copy so that the intervals at which the copies in each bin are superposed one on another are elongated and the back side of the upper copy is not stained with wet ink on the lower copy. The aforesaid stapling is generally effected when the sort mode is selected.
In the stencil printer system provided with a sorter with a stapling means, when the user selects the sort mode and the stapling mode and copies of a plurality of originals are stacked and stapled together, it is necessary to detect that printing of a last original is ended. This detection can be effected by setting originals to an automatic document feeder which feeds the originals one by one to the master making means and detecting that all the originals set to the automatic document feeder have been fed to the master making means.
When copies of an original are to be printed, the user generally must set the stencil printer system to the master making mode to make a stencil master and then must operate the stencil printer system again to set the system to the printing mode. However, copies of a plurality of originals are to be printed, it is troublesome for the user to set the stencil printer system to the master making mode and to the printing mode for each original. Accordingly, some stencil printer systems are provided with a continuous printing mode for automatically effecting printing following the master making step. By using the continuous printing mode in combination with an automatic document feeder, the master making step and the printing step can be automatically repeated so long as there remains an original in the automatic document feeder.
However even if the user sets a plurality of originals to the automatic document feeder and sets the stencil printer system to the stapling mode, setting to the stapling mode will become vain when the user forgets to set the system to the continuous printing mode since in this case the automatic document feeder feeds out only one of the originals. Further it is troublesome for the user to set both the stapling mode and the continuous printing mode.